you & me

Are The Demons Of Our Dreams Less Real Than Those We Create With Our imaginations?

The mornings. They are always the worst.

Carrying the enigma, the energy, and the emotional charge of secret slumber into the day.

Whatever demons my subconscious wrestled with during the night, whichever of its fears were fought on the fertile soils of the subconscious, the mornings show the war wounds in the most unforgiving light.

Like a warrior slain, I drag my heavy sword, holding it up to face the day — the day that I believe will be filled with those same demons that escaped my wrath by night.

Imprinted as they always are though in the emotional valleys of our minds, the demons are elusive, insidious beings disguising themselves as the faces of strangers and loved ones alike, roaring out from their voices or burning us with the flames of their actions.

Seeing the world through the tainted fears and hopes of our dreams, we impose those illusions on others and then imagine it is they who make us feel this way or that. No. No, they do not and they cannot. For our experience of the world arises and falls from within.

Are the demons of our dreams any more or less real than the demons we create with the vividness of our imaginations?

I ask myself, as the raging customer hollers before me, what if she is not the way I imagine her to be? I ask myself, as the impoverished man sits under his shelter in the cold, what if he is not the way I imagine him to be? I ask myself, as I watch the roar of the wind, what if the world is not how I see it?

How can we be so sure of ourselves, when even the very ground we stand on and imagine to be still, is actually hurtling through space at 1,000 mph? Can we really trust our own senses?

Reality is as it is. And our view of reality may have nothing to do with reality at all.

I am tired now. Tired of preparing for the battles, carrying a shield of fighting them and being defeated. For in the battleground of one’s mind there is never a winner.

We need not battle with demons, the greatest vulnerability lies in looking at the views onto which we hold so dearly and accepting that they may be fallacious, unreal and wholly inaccurate.

I am tired of fighting with the world, of hoping it would be everything I wish it would be. I am tired of fighting with myself and wishing the very same.

There is only this moment and my perception of it. What else is there?

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Asha Patel

Asha Patel

Asha Patel has traveled the world in search of her own heart, only to discover that it was right here all along, and that it demands chocolate for breakfast -- regularly. Asha’s corporate background in law and finance has always co-existed alongside her creative pursuits. As well as being engaged as a painter, photographer, food enthusiast and martial artist, she is passionate about people and the path of self-inquiry. As a writer, Asha is rarely to be found without a pen in her hand and has co-authored a novel called ‘Looking for the Obvious’, a unique publication of spiritual fiction that invites readers to embark on the inner journey to unveil the true creative force within.
Asha Patel
Asha Patel
Asha Patel